SCOTUS, one of the most effective Checks on the Executive

On Monday, Mr. Trump announced his pick for SCOTUS to fill Justice Kennedy's seat, with Judge Brett Kavanaugh. At this point, assuming that Judge Kavanaugh gets seated (which he likely will), the Trump Presidency, despite some truly bad decisions on the part of the Executive, will be an overall win. Now, I'm still rather displeased with the president on several issues, and I'm not planning on voting for him, but most of his less exemplary decisions are entirely executive in nature, meaning that they only last as long as an executive wants them to. The judiciary on the other hand, can be shaped for a generation, and so far, his picks have been solid. Moreover, his one seated pick so far, Gorsuch, has already once ruled in ways that limit  the Trump administration. A good SCOTUS is a major limiter on executive shenanigans, and so far Trump has strengthened, rather than weakened, that limiter.
Just don't expect me to be happy when SCOTUS has to remind the executive branch that the Constitution, not the personal beliefs of the executive or of the bureaucrats involved, is the supreme law of the land.

Justice Kennedy's retirement

The current Democrat woes over SCOTUS is entirely of their own design. So far, they've had French flatulence blow up in their faces when the Biden rule got invoked to prevent Merrick Garland from sitting on SCOTUS, then again when Reid's filibuster reform got extended to SCOTUS nominations to allow Gorsuch to take a seat. Now, because it benefited them to have the Biden rule only apply to presidential elections, they're about to get another Trump appointee to SCOTUS (hopefully a strict constructionist, originalist, or textualist). It's even worse for them because Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer didn't retire under Obama, when they could've at least ensured that it would only take one justice to tip the balance back in their favor. From here out, Ginsberg and Breyer have to survive until the next president takes office - two to six years from now - at an age where death can happen suddenly and without warning for a variety of reasons, in order to prevent Trump from creating a SCOTUS that would be almost impossible for any single president to flip.
I'm not exactly full of sorrow over their mistakes.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

From CBS:
Report: '93 World Trade Center bomber sues to end solitary confinement

The article didn't say anything about how the solitary confinement was being challenged, but I'd assume that the challenge is being done with the 8th amendment to the US Constitution:

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

The only bit we're interested in is the last part - cruel and unusual punishment. That phrase is open to lots of interpretation and argument. There are many different opinions on just what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" - in fact, the case which produced the first relevant Supreme Court ruling (Furman v. Georgia) so divided the SCOTUS that each justice wrote their own separate concurrence or dissent. Other cases, including some in recent years have continued to divide the SCOTUS. I'm going to add to the pile of opinions.

A cruel punishment is one that exceeds the crime in terms of severity or goes out of its way to be inhumane. Giving a life sentence to a petty thief would be cruel, as would applying crucifixion or impalement to any offense, even in cases where the offender tortured his victims to death. But the simple death penalty for occurrences of first degree murder is not cruel, nor is life in prison for any malicious act that results in the death of another. The punishment must be appropriate to the crime with sentences increasing in severity based upon the severity of the crime, and with those crimes where physical harm was committed or threatened automatically incurring a higher penalty than any crime where only financial harm was committed.
Unusual is when the punishment is only applied to a few of those who commit crimes of the same type and scale. If most convicted of one specific crime (auto theft, for example) got one sentence, but a select few convicts got a different punishment, that punishment would be unusual - no matter if it was more or less severe that the usual punishment.
Punishment must fit the crime, and the punishment must be applied the same to all convicted of crimes of the same type and severity (thus allowing for different punishments for different amounts of damage done).
This brings me to the death penalty. Many assert that the death penalty is cruel and unusual. While it is almost certainly unusual - most courts hesitate to apply an irreversible penalty, no matter the crime - is is not cruel when applied to those who commit first degree murder (premeditated). Still, due to its irreversible nature, in any case where there is any doubt as to the guilt of the convicted, other means of punishment should be applied, so that if new evidence is found demonstrating the innocence of the accused, they can be exonerated and released. However, in cases where, due to committing the crime in front of cameras/witnesses, taking of souvenirs (a la Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer), confession, or other evidence that leaves no doubt as to the identity of the killer. When someone's life is on the line, there must be no doubt, no chance that someone else committed the crime, so that no one innocent of premeditated murder is executed.

Biden as president?

Biden may or may not become the next president of the US if Obama is declared uneligible for the presidency. But because Biden ran on the same ticket as Obama, he may not be vice-president if Obama could not be the president.

Lawsuit against Obama

There is another lawsuit against President Obama.
This one has already gone to the Supreme Court and is scheduled to be considered on the 15th of February.

President Obama and whether or not he was born in the U.S.

If the allegations that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, as some people believe or suspect, the consequences could be disastrous for both the country and the constitution.

If President Obama is not a natural born citizen, then what happens?

According to the U.S. constitution, he never could have been president, under Article II, Section 1. As such, what would happen to the laws that were signed, vetoed, or not vetoed or signed within 10 days (Article I, Section 7)? I suspect that every bill passed by congress since 2008 would become law, since President Obama could not have been president during that time period. It would have been Vice-President Biden, who never signed or vetoed a single bill during his Vice-Presidency. The constitution does not specifically state that there has to be a sitting president when a bill is signed; it just gives the president 10 days to sign.

On the other hand , President Obama could not have run for the presidency in the first place, potentially putting the Republican party or other third parties into the presidency. We would still have the bills passed by congress during that time put into law, since they would not have been returned or signed by the president. The constitution did not foresee the potential for someone not naturally born in the U.S. or its territories becoming president. However, there are already amendments to the constitution which specify whom becomes president if the president should become unable to discharge his duties, which means that Vice-President Joe Biden would take over--regardless of whether or not he wanted to or anyone else wanted him to.

So, we have to ask ourselves, how would the Supreme Court rule a lawsuit against President Obama in all likelihood, again if it could be conclusively proven that he was not a natural born citizen?

It is my belief that the Supreme Court will have a ruling on party lines, with a 5-4 ruling saying that President Obama could not have been president if sufficient evidence is gathered. What happens to the bills and positions that President Obama passed or created while in office, and what happens to the bills that he vetoed is uncertain.

If it is decided that all bills that were vetoed while President Obama was president are de-facto law due to the 10 day clause, then all bills that were passed by congress during that time period are also law.

Post your comments on what you think would happen if President Obama was not a natural born citizen.